


Loathe the Ones You're With

by FrostandSilence



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Also Silly, Cop AU, M/M, Probably Pretty Sad, This is Just to Bug Mertiya
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:05:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6047584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrostandSilence/pseuds/FrostandSilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dack Fayden is a small time thief whose cellmate is the enigmatic Ral Zarek, a mysterious man with a heavy sentence and a failing mind. When they're offered a chance to assist a young detective in exchange for a reduced sentence, Dack grapples with doing the right thing and Ral clings to his last bit of sanity. It doesn't help that their new associate, Jace, seems to have the uncanny ability to see into minds...</p>
<p>This is the dumb AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loathe the Ones You're With

Ral Zarek pressed his hand against the cold stone of his cell, grumbling slightly. His chalk scribbles had been getting slightly less coherent as of late; he hadn’t been able to pull a fully formed though from his head for quite some time. It didn’t help that his cellmate constantly whistled while he was trying to think. He crushed the chalk between his fingers and slammed his fist into the underside of the upper bunk, quieting the whistler. 

“What’s your problem, Ral?” A casually annoyed Dack Fayden peered down at him from the top bunk. 

“You.” Ral growled and flopped down onto his bed. “Whistling, all the time, even when I’m trying to think.”

“That’s probably for the best, I don’t want more time tacked onto my sentence because of your science bullshit.” Dack laughed softly and then jumped as Ral delivered a swift kick to the top bunk. “Don’t break things, Ral.”

“Don’t break things, Ral!” Ral kicked the wall and tore his pillow in half, the thin cotton stuffing sticking to his orange jumpsuit. 

“I wish you would listen to me.” Dack tried to get comfortable as Ral angrily shook the bedframe. He half wished the bed would collapse. At least then he could get some sleep without his mad cellmate constantly raving about whatever it was he thought of that day. At first their relationship was amicable, now it was anything but. Both he and Ral were nonviolent offenders (something he was sure he could contest, as Ral tended to be incredibly violent in close quarters) who had been placed in shared accommodations at their local minimum security prison. Dack was a thief, a low-level petty criminal with a history of minor crimes and no intention of reforming during his time in prison; Ral, at least in his opinion, was far more suited to an asylum than a prison. He’d been quiet at first, hadn’t bragged about his arrest like a lot of the other men, and had constantly requested paper and pens in order to record his thoughts. All that Dack was able to gather from him was that he’d been involved in some sort of experiment that had, as he’d put it, resulted in minor property damage. 

“I didn’t hurt anyone, you know.” Ral had told him the first time it was brought up. “This is all wrong.” Dack wasn’t sure whether to believe him at first, but it didn’t matter much. The two were stuck together for the foreseeable future. Which, for Dack, was four years, and for Ral, thirty. The two men had formed a quiet friendship early on, until Ral started to disintegrate. The thoughts on his papers had been getting more and more inconsistent, until one day, in a fit of madness, Ral’s pen had become lodged in his own hand. For weeks, Ral picked at the wound, complaining that it was his mark of failure, tossing away the bits of chalk that the warden passed him. “Chalk is for children.” He’d told Dack, despite already using it to cover their cell in complex equations and other things that Dack couldn’t possibly hope to understand. Since the pen incident, their relationship had slowly declined to the point of, well, Dack wishing his bunk would crush Ral. 

“Be quiet in there, Zarek.” The warden passed by their cell, staring grimly at Ral. Gideon was a nice man; he placed everyone on equal footing, respected everyone equally, but Ral seemed to hit a nerve that nobody else quite did. Dack took note of the fact that Gideon’s general annoyance had turned into sad looks at some point. Ral glared at Gideon sharply. 

“I’m out of chalk.” He stuck his bandaged hand through the bars expectantly. Gideon withdrew a new piece and pressed it into Ral’s palm, eyeing the chalk dust and fluff on his jumpsuit. 

“Zarek, did you have another episode?”

“I do not have episodes” Ral hissed, leaning as close to Gideon as he could get without pressing his face against the bars. 

“You were declared to be of sound mental health when you entered here, but if it were up to me I would have you seeing a psychiatrist every day.” Gideon sighed and closed his hand over Ral’s. “If you ever warm up to the idea, please let me know.”

“I’m not seeing a fucking quack.” Ral hesitated for a moment then yanked his hand back through the bars. “Piss off, I have to get back to work.”

“Alright, Zarek.” Gideon looked up at Dack, who stared at him lazily from the top bunk. “Keep an eye on him, Fayden.”

“Right-o, boss.” Dack saluted him casually with his red stained hand. He really didn’t hate Gideon. He felt he probably owed the warden a drink once he was released. Of course, Ral owed him a hundred for all the aggravation… but that was something they could work out in the future. Gideon gave them a casual reminder that it was almost time for lights out and then continued on his rounds. Ral was scribbling on the ground now, drawing what looked like the curling body of a dragon scaled with mathematical symbols. What a very Ral thing to do, Dack thought to himself before climbing down off his bunk to watch. 

“What are you looking at?” 

“You’re not a bad artist, buddy.” Dack leaned over to take a look at Ral’s drawing, and noticed its striking similarity to the plain dragon snaking up Ral’s arm. “You draw those too?”

“These?” Ral rolled his sleeve up a bit more, showing off several complex tattoos. “Yeah.”

“Not bad. You should design one for me sometime. I’ve been thinking about getting another once I get out of here.” Dack meant it mostly as a joke or something to occupy Ral, but he really didn’t mind the idea. 

“I already have something in mind.” Ral tapped his chalk on the ground then wrote the word ‘shithead’ on the ground in big, messy letters. “Right on your forehead for annoying me so often.”

Dack laughed and shot Ral a look of contempt. “I’ll think about it.” Ral kept scribbling things until the lights went out, at which point the chalk was hurled out through the bars and Dack found himself falling asleep to the sound of angry rambling. It was, he mused, probably his real punishment.


End file.
